GOLETA — For a few minutes, the atmosphere inside Captain Fatty’s Brewery in Santa Barbara County was quiet, different from the usual Friday night clamor.

On this late May evening, the 15 men gathered there were contemplating tackling something few had previously had the courage or skill to take on. Austin Nieves, a recent transplant to the area and the man who had brought this brave group together, broke the strained silence by handing out beers.

Within minutes, the men, who ranged in age from 30 to 60, began chatting among themselves.

Then they started braiding hair.

The May 22 event — Goleta’s version of the viral U.K.-inspired “Pints and Ponytails” night — was sold out. The idea is to have expert hairstylists train uninitiated or intimidated fathers on how to comb and braid their kids’ hair, using salon-type head mannequins but in a setting for bros.

“When the first guys got there, they were stiff,” said Nieves, a Pasadena native who moved to Santa Barbara in April 2025. “Then after that first beer, they went from sitting around the edge of the bar to jumping right into learning and giving it a shot.”

The gathering was one of several father functions by the Santa Barbara Dads group, which Nieves founded last spring.

May’s papa party offered, along with the suds, a learning experience and camaraderie among fathers, which Nieves believes is much needed.

“When my wife had our son, she immediately became part of at least five mom groups and classes that offered her help, advice, friendship and training,” Nieves said. “As a first-time father, I really only had my brothers, who had children themselves, to turn to.”

Scientific studies have shown that as fathers have taken a more active role in child rearing, they’ve faced loneliness, doubt and confusion.

Researchers Chris Knoester and David J. Eggebeen wrote in 2006 in the “Journal of Family Issues” that fatherhood leads “to declines in feelings of well-being and participation in social activities” as fathers spend less time with friends.

Clinical psychologists Hillary Halpern and Maureen Perry-Jenkins documented that the transition from single life to fatherhood is often accompanied by a roller coaster of emotions. And researchers from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute determined in a 2021 study that fathers might require help “during their transition to fatherhood.”

Eric Drachman, of Santa Barbara, center, pays close attention as hair stylist Chi Jou Lin, left, teaches a group of dads how to style their daughters’ hair.

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A detail of one of the mannequin heads.

One such way to assist men is specifically a fathers group, according to the 2021 study.

Most men “were mostly satisfied with participating in father groups and described that they positively impacted their relationship with their partner and child.”

The increased contact also helped improve “their self-confidence and family equality and decreased their loneliness.”

Nieves agreed that his leisure time and focus changed sharply after the birth of his child, Hudson, now 3 years old, as did his friend group updates.

“They were talking about all this crazy fun or TV shows and I was talking about my son being able to lift his head,” Nieves said. “That’s when I knew I had to branch out.”

Nieves, then living in Costa Mesa with his wife, Katie, created the Orange County Dads club in October 2023.

Scientific studies have shown that as fathers have taken a more active role in child rearing, they’ve faced loneliness, doubt and confusion.

His group of merry men held meetups at coffee shops, beer halls and the zoo, hosted holiday hootenannies and even offered CPR classes.

Its success helped spawn a chapter in the Whittier area.

Though strictly a fathers club, the group, Nieves said, has grown thanks to wives and partners sharing his social media posts with their husbands.

Mikhail Alfon, founder of Blue Light Media, a social media strategy agency, took his son, Santos, to multiple Orange County meetups.

“This is our first child and obviously life changes a lot,” said Alfon in a social media post. “Finding peers and friends that are in the same stage of life is great.”

That sense of community, however, faced a challenge as Nieves and his family purchased a home in Santa Barbara and moved in April 2025.

Peter Aguilar, left, and Fredy Medel work on their technique. Medel’s partner, Daniela Fajardo, holding their 1-year-old daughter, Faylani, records the event.

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Within a month, however, he had established a Santa Barbara-based dads group. Their first meetup was in May 2025, and they’ve made a point to gather once a month.

Austin Jones, a Santa Barbara-based real estate agent and investor, found Nieves through Instagram.

“I’m a husband, a dad and businessman, and it ends up being a lot of hats but very little support, at times,” Jones said. “It’s nice to find people in the trenches with you.”

Jones was intrigued by Pints and Ponytails as he’s battled the hair-care needs of his 2 ½-year-old daughter, Noa, and her textured, curly locks.

In a short while, Jones had gained enough confidence in whipping his mannequin’s hair into a ponytail that he vowed to try with his daughter soon.

“I was only pretty good at putting on a headband before this,” he quipped.

The six mannequin heads and the hour of instruction came courtesy of Santa Barbara cosmetologist Chi Jou “Belle” Lin, who offers area mobile services.

“I saw the social media post and a lot of people reached out to me to teach the class,” Lin said. “I had to help.”

Lin said the mannequins she brought varied in hair length and type, from straight to coily, but also fine in texture, as she tried to replicate young children’s hair.

A pint of beer, hairstyling tools and sprays.

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She also taught the fathers basic hair-care techniques, including shampooing, detangling, checking for lice and how to tie ponytails and braids.

Even if they started out reticent, the fathers became active participants, asking questions about creating a neat French braid, what to do about tangled ponytails and how to deal with frightened children, Lin said.

“I was really impressed with the dads and their skills and the real-life questions,” said the stylist, who has personal experience at home in her 2 ½-year-old daughter, Lotus. “Not all men have the courage to ask questions.”

For Nieves, the secret in gaining new dads and retaining others is simplicity.

“If you open the door, the fathers will follow because everyone can use some help,” Nieves said. “But they just need to know it exists and they’re not alone.”

Dads Gabriel Sandoval, left, Jose Guerrero and David Talavera toast one another at the May 22 Santa Barbara County Dads’ “Pints and Ponytails” event in Goleta.

Days after the Goleta get-together, Santa Barbara dad Eric Drachman became a celebrity at the preschool of his daughter, Noa, who is soon to be 3.

“When the videos of the event were posted, the teachers at the school recognized me,” Drachman said. “They would ask my daughter, ‘Who did your hair?’”

The query that means most, however, is when Noa asks her father to fix her hair.

“She asks occasionally,” he said. “It‘s such a fun dynamic we have.”

Summer movies aimed at high-schoolers — comedies, romances, horror flicks — have been a tradition for ages. Think Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Dirty Dancing and the original Friday the 13th, which all drew hot-weather crowds back in the 1980s.

This summer, the movies are queer — not just in casting, but in method and purpose. These three teen flicks transform familiar movie styles by bringing them an LGBTQ sensibility.

A raunchy comedy: She’s the He

You know the drill: a bonkers lose-my-virginity plan is hatched by inseparable high-school best buds who are so eager to get girls to notice them, they can hardly think straight.

So, they don’t think … straight. For reasons that could only make sense to horny 17-year-olds, Ethan and Alex decide the way to catch the attention of the school’s hottest girls is to pretend to be trans.

Filmmaker Siobhan McCarthy uses that premise to tell a sweet story about Ethan (who realizes mid-scam that she really is trans), while also mocking some of the more ridiculous transphobic notions — “bathroom scare,” anyone? — that have been politically weaponized recently.

When the whole football team decides that donning women’s attire is a small price to pay to get access to the girls’ locker room, McCarthy prompts boisterous laughs while also establishing how idiotic and unlikely this scenario would be in real life. Casting trans men — say, team captain played by Emmett Preciado — as the cis male characters allows McCarthy to further poke at conservative anxieties.

As leads Alex and Ethan, Nico Carney (a sharp trans comic whose read on toxic masculinity proves hilarious), and Misha Osherovich (sweetly affecting as Ethan discovers her true self) head a terrific, mostly trans and non-binary cast. And a similarly queer team behind the camera helps make She’s the He a raucous, touching, seriously fun charmer — think Some Like It Hot meets American Pie with a Heartstopper vibe.

The romance: Girls Like Girls

This gentle teen love story sprang from a hit song Hayley Kiyoko released in 2015. The music video that accompanied the song pictured a budding lesbian romance and has since racked up over 160 million YouTube views. In 2023, Kiyoko penned a young adult book version, which debuted at the top of bestseller lists. Now, she’s brought all of those elements together in a movie about Coley (Maya da Costa) and Sonya (Myra Molloy), two 17-year-old girls navigating a summer romance that takes both of them by surprise.

Sometimes compatibility unfolds over long conversations at coffee shops or even on the dance floor. Mine and Fernando’s became apparent on our seventh date, standing on a dark corner in downtown L.A. After a short flight, a day at Venice Beach and the fastest glow-up ever for a mom of three, my date opened his hands, sighed and canceled the glorious evening I’d planned. It was supposed to start with a jazz club and end with a tour of late-night sushi bars, until Fernando said, “I feel like a bummer.”

I hooked my arm through the crook of his, turning back toward the empty streets and our stuffy Airbnb.

A few weeks before, on one of our first dates, I’d told Fernando I was presenting at a conference in L.A. “You should join me,” I said, half joking.

“Really?” he asked. “You don’t know me at all.”

He was right. We were in the polite phase. We bonded over being transplants to Seattle — him from the Dominican Republic, me from Florida, but we were still figuring out the basics. I hadn’t learned yet that he never touches coffee but totally loves cake, my least favorite treat. And for me, espresso is a daily requirement.

Fernando didn’t say yes to my invitation right away. We continued to date, playing the questions game. “What’s your favorite snack?” he asked me.

“Mole tacos,” I said. “What’s your biggest flaw?”

“Follow through,” he said. “Yours?”

“I’m annoyingly persistent.”

“Perfect match,” he said.

The more we talked, the more we realized that our shortcomings, which made us look like exact opposites, came from the same root. His father had been barely present during childhood, and my father had died when I was a teenager. We both wrestled with trying to find agency inside of moments in our adult lives that felt like abandonment. Although we’d each been in therapy for years before we met, we also struggled to deal with disappointment.

“Maybe we should go on this wild trip together,” he said.

“Make-it-or-break-it style,” I said.

When we stepped through the door of our downtown L.A. Airbnb after a long, hot day walking the boardwalk, we had our first chance to manage a letdown, together.

“I think people actually live here,” he said.

“Like it’s 2015,” I said.

We’d made a commitment before we flew out to keep things light. If one of us complained, the other was supposed to say something fun. But the apartment was muggy, the surfaces covered in dust. We made exaggerated, positive comments about the vintage decor as I waited for the water to warm in a huge, clawfoot tub.

Fernando said something about getting in while the shower was still cold, so we could preserve water for the good people of California. I noted the fatherly tone — and realized I probably seemed wasteful for resisting the chilly stream during a drought.

While I bathed, he shaved. Then we switched. “I feel shy but not shy,” Fernando said, and I agreed. I wondered if this would be the first of many small, sweet moments — or if it was the only time we’d ever share this kind of intimacy.

We were finally ready for our night on the town, but we only walked six blocks before Fernando turned to me and told me that he was too tired to keep going.

“I owe you,” he said, as we walked back, but I was wiped too and relieved he said it first.

“What if we do something different and call it exciting?” I asked.

We talked about the absolute thrill of ordering takeout in a city that was 30 degrees warmer than the one where we both lived, listing every little thing that was totally amazing around us. All those closed-down garages that would open in the morning selling fabric? Gorgeous.

The dark streetlights on one side of the road that made the shadows look like a modern noir film? Fabulous.

The fact that we were about to fall asleep in the same city as dozens of celebrities we both adored? Relatively meaningless but still badass.

As we ate our to-go sushi in downtown L.A., I realized I wasn’t disappointed at all. My drive to follow through was all about the mission, and our mission had changed. Instead of wooing my new date with a super swanky night on the town, I had the opportunity to connect with him in a real way.

Our trip to L.A. had become a kind of test, way more intense than agreeing on a sofa or building an IKEA shelf. We were stuck spending time with each other without performing, in a strange city, for days.

After I presented at the conference the next morning, Fernando and I moved to a new rental in the Hollywood Hills, where we found our way to endless taco stands and two speakeasies, Good Times at Davey Wayne’s and Adults Only. The only landmark we saw was Muscle Beach, and the only quintessential L.A. thing we did was accidentally find ourselves in front of the Last Bookstore an hour before we needed to head to the airport, so we spent that hour walking around inside.

“Let’s keep traveling,” we said to each other on the way home.

Seven years and dozens of trips later, I engraved “I will travel with you” on the inside of our wedding rings. The night before our wedding, we stood together in a tiny bathroom in his sister’s house in the Dominican Republic, washing our faces. I looked at him in the mirror. He turned and looked at me. “I’m really glad you invited me to Los Angeles,” he said.

“It was a risk,” I said, “and the best trip ever.”

The city isn’t ours, but it made us who we are, together.

The author is a journalist and illustrator working on a memoir about Florida. She splits her time between her Seattle, L.A. and the Deep South. Her Instagram is @adjsbb and website is AshaDore.net.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.